


the only talking lately is that background radio

by seabass



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, foggy is his volunteer handler, matt is a vigilante
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 15:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3855274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabass/pseuds/seabass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy is learning the sound of Murdock’s first knuckles and the whip-crack of his sharp punches. He’s seen his elbow cock back for a short swing – pixels grainy on those cheap cameras in the dark of bad-part-of-town warehouses. Murdock makes music and Foggy makes coffee. Foggy says ‘don’t forget’ and Murdock never does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the only talking lately is that background radio

**Author's Note:**

> title from gregory alan isakov's 3 am.

Computers have a language, Foggy tells Murdock through the mics. 

Computers are easy – malleable and straightforward.

He says, “They never lie.”

Murdock makes a noise in the back of his throat. He’s bleeding again – Foggy is learning to listen for that wheeze.

“It’s all basic numbers. If you can read a code you can do anything. If you can type a code you can stop other people from doing anything.”

It’s dark where Murdock’s at – not dark like Foggy’s room; machines whirring, blinking, their faces bleaching his walls – the picture quality isn't high enough to un-smudge the shadows from Murdock’s face, or cast away the gloom over his eyes. They would be blue, Foggy thinks, a shade from the deepest depths of the oceans or the furthest reaches of their atmosphere – uncharted. Or green – green like self-sufficiency and rebirth.

Karen had said Murdock’s eyes would be red like headlights, Claire had shook her head and shrugged, said she hadn't thought about it. She had, though. Foggy knew she had.

“I don’t know anything about computers.” Murdock tells him.

“I know. That’s why you’re stuck out on the streets pistol whipping low-lives and getting stabbed on the reg while I stay cooped up in my comfy nest, tip-tapping away at my keyboard, not a worry in the world. Don’t forget the thumb drive on the desk.”

Murdock’s halfway there, steps clipped and fast.

Foggy moves like he’s in water sometimes, when he’s fresh out of bed or the day’s been too long. Murdock moves like the air parts for him, or shifts with him – smooth and soundless – and no bad day would ever take away God’s favor over him.

“Which thumb drive is it? There’s two here.”

“The white one.”

Murdock grunts.

Foggy signs off once he sees Murdock lift himself out of the sunroof, tossing his ear-bud into an empty mug. It’s just passed four in the morning, he reads, as he crawls into bed.

\--

When Murdock says things like ‘tell me or you’ll never use this arm again’ or ‘you’ll be walking in six months’ Foggy knows this world isn't for him. Murdock’s different right when he walks away with the information he wants – and he always gets the information he wants – but, for a few minutes after he’s peaceful like an atom bomb, just before the heat.

It’s not that Foggy thinks Murdock likes doing what he does to those men, but there’s someone else in that man, someone darker, and in those moments when bone cracks against bone that someone likes it – takes joy in it. Feels powerful.

Foggy tells himself if he could move like Murdock moves – protect what Murdock can protect – he’d understand. There’s someone in Foggy, someone soft and as gentle as a summer breeze, in those moments, that disagrees.

He calls himself a coward – in his head where Murdock can’t hear.

\--

A boy goes missing and someone sends Foggy an email because the cops won’t do anything for 62 hours and his contact information is spreading like wildfire these days. 

The letter enclosed is formal, apologetic, someone doesn't want to bother bored, old Foggy. It says some boy – a Hell’s Kitchen runaway– used to visit the soup kitchen every evening and stay until closing to help clean up. He didn't show up today but yesterday he was different, distant – jumpy. This woman is worried, and she knows someone’s grabbed him, worried he’ll be on a silver table next she sees him, a tag on his toe.

Murdock asks around the neighborhood – learns from some teenager smoking on her balcony that a couple boys at school went missing a month apart and were found floating and soggy in the bay a night later and he learns from a snaky man from Ukraine that spits a bloody eye tooth onto the pavement that some drug lord’s got a taste for high school track team types. 

There are six armed men in the hovel meth lab and Murdock is ruthless – too intense for such a small space. He breaks beakers over heads, holds someone’s face in the shards, and only allows one man to fire a single shot before the lot of them are face down on sick, pasty carpet. Foggy watches through a security camera as Murdock hauls the guy in charge onto his knees and counts down from five, snapping fingers with each number, distant and waiting like storm clouds. He stops only when the screaming is loud enough to crackle the bug in Murdock’s ear, and the drug lord begs and tells him the boy’s in a trunk in the closet, unharmed and unsoiled. Foggy feels sick watching the man curl away from Murdock’s slacking grip, feels his stomach roll and shudder just the same way that powerful drug lord does.

Foggy wonders about heaven and hell.

Because if hell is real then this man, shaking and shivering, wouldn't last a day with the devil.

And Murdock, it’s hard to believe there’s a spot for him in God’s bright light. It’s even harder to believe he belongs anywhere else.

There’s a click and an exact second where Foggy stops believing in God and he starts believing in Murdock and this is it, watching a big man cry and hug himself in a puddle of cold medicine, blood, and beer bottles as Murdock pulls a sixteen year old out of a chest. It’s the moment the street boy throws himself forward and sobs into the arms of a wild beast with bloody knuckles and a threading, angry heartbeat. For the first time Foggy really thinks about what sort of people he really wants to spend his eternity with.

\--

“Are you religious?” Murdock asks him that night. He’s squatting at the edge of a roof, solid like there isn't ten stories of air inches from his toes. He looks like a gargoyle through the camera on the big bank building across the street. When Foggy zooms in the colors go crude and Murdock looks dangerous.

“No.” Foggy says, “My mom is, but I never had that spark. What about you?”

“Catholic.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you suppose will happen to that drug lord, then? After he’s dead, when he can’t hurt people anymore.”

“I don’t know.” Murdock says, “But he’ll deserve it.”

\--

There’s a fighting rink pitting dopers against each other behind the darker buildings of Hell’s Kitchen and when Murdock catches whiff of it he goes blood hound on the case. He sniffs the operation down like his nose is to the ground – fast, efficient, like he’s being pulled to the worst pits this city has to offer. 

Hell’s Kitchen is proud to show Murdock her monsters, she holds them out for him to see, says look what I made and Murdock responds in kind, bares his teeth and spits blood from his mouth like it’s filthy, says look what you can make me do and the flirting never ends, the mating dance is forever, never enough. These two are insatiable.

Foggy watches from miles away as Murdock stands in a fighting pit and takes every beating these gamblers have to offer, and Murdock takes many down, but he never goes with them. He stands up each time his back hits the dirt, and his knees never buckle, and soon the word devil is being whispered through the open courtyard and every not-broken man scatters. Murdock comes for them one at a time, unrelenting and unforgiving.

'El diablo' come the echoes, and in the cold winter air the words ring.

The city never thanks him for his suffering, but Murdock will always be her favorite masterpiece.

\--

With the thumb drive Murdock sends him, Foggy is able to dig up some cutthroat dirt on a big company enterprise. With the second one that came with it Foggy is able to scrape up enough blackmail material to discover crooked reports on a second enterprise.

\--

There’s the commissioner’s daughter a few nights later – she’s maybe four – who clings to Murdock like he’s a giant teddy bear and not a cold, one track minded wolf on a mission. She watches him take out three men holding her for ransom with swift, cruel blows and although she pulls away when the room goes still Murdock starts speaking and she’s right at his heels, talking Murdock’s ear off and Christ, Foggy thinks, she’s more resilient than anyone Foggy could be. She’s unhurt, and safer there with Murdock than she ever will be again in her life. She doesn't know that yet, but maybe she can feel it because she reaches up to clasp Murdock’s hand and leads him to the door.

A little overwhelmed, Murdock can only follow.

In a formal, pretty voice the little girl looks up and says, “What’s your name?”

And Murdock is gravely silent.

“I’m Jenny.” She says and then waits.

“Matt.”

She nods and pulls him along. Foggy switches cameras so he can watch them exit the apartment complex. Matt kneels down next to her when the alleys flash with reds and blues.

“You can’t tell anyone my name, okay.”

“Okay,” she says.

“Promise.”

She cocks her head to the side and stares at him, but crosses her finger over her chest and zips her lips closed.

Matt says, “Thank you.”

And she says, “My daddy is coming.”

When Murdock leaves her sitting on the patio to stand out of sight, watching the cops swarm at a safe distance, Foggy breathes through the coms, “So, Matt huh?”

“Keep it professional, Nelson.”

“You can call me Foggy if you want. All my friends do.”

\--

There are quiet nights sometimes. Even the scum of the earth grow tired. Even the city has pity in her. There’s no calls for Matt to go running that night so he sits and he waits and he listens on rooftops. Foggy stays with him, even when boredom makes his eyelids scratchy and his coffee grows cold.

They sit in silence for hours until a woman and a man fight over a purse, but a whisper of the devil puts the whole thing to sleep before Matt can even stand.

The city says tonight they can sleep.

Matt says, “It looks like a slow night.”

And Foggy smiles, “Maybe we can turn in early then.”

Matt doesn't respond, but they don’t leave, they wait the whole night out. Foggy doesn't mind, not even in the morning when he’s yawning through his shift.

\--

A dirty cop shoots Matt in the side and Foggy’s room is suddenly so quiet he can hear hands gripping tight on a steel ladder, the metal of a weapon tapping and hollow. Matt’s breathing is heavy and wet and right at the mic like it’s in his mouth. A choking gasp breaks through their airwaves as Matt swings himself over a big, brick balcony and drops out of sight of Foggy’s cameras. Foggy stares at where Matt’s disappeared.

“Are you okay, Matty?”

“No.”

“How’s it look?” Foggy asks hopefully, “Not too bad?”

“I couldn't say.”

“What?”

Matt sighs and his teeth grit and his chest heaves.

“I couldn't tell you how it looks,” he says.

“What do you mean?” Foggy’s voice cracks. Claire, he should be dialing Claire.

“I’m blind, Foggy.”

“Oh shit,” he chokes, “Did you hit your head? Did they spray anything into your eyes?”

“No, Foggy. Since I was a kid.”

Foggy’s jaw is stiff, his ears are full of cotton. He can only manage, “What?”

“Foggy, I’m blind. I've been blind this whole time.”

“What, and you didn't think to mention that to me ever?”

“It didn't really seem important.”

“Jesus.” Foggy blinks, “Now that I think about it that makes a lot of sense.”

“It does?”

“You always pause after you say ‘I see’. You were making a pun this whole time. You were waiting for me to laugh,” Foggy blanches, “This whole time you were waiting for me to laugh.”

The other end of the com goes completely silent for so long that Foggy’s worries Matty’s died of blood loss but then there’s a small, happy bubble of noise. It’s the first time he’s heard Matt laugh.

Matt says, “Foggy, I’m bleeding from two holes, can we talk about this some other time?”

Claire’s phone is already ringing. By the time she answers Foggy doesn't have the fluttering feeling in his stomach and Matt’s grunting in pain again.

Foggy unabashedly bellows with laughter the next time Matt makes a blind pun, it’s after he’s healed, when he’s two feet from the edge of a stairwell that leads to an underground gambling site and a man who’s selling information on politicians who make deals with organized crime bosses – and he’ll give Matt the information for free. Even with such shit quality cameras Foggy can make out Matt’s grin and god it feels good in his gut to see it.


End file.
